World Bank ready to help poor nations as food costs rise

Tuesday

Jul 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 31, 2012 at 12:24 PM

WASHINGTON - The World Bank yesterday said it stood ready to help governments respond to a broad-based run-up in grain prices that again has put the world's poorest people at risk and could have a lingering detrimental impact for years.

WASHINGTON — The World Bank yesterday said it stood ready to help governments respond to a broad-based run-up in grain prices that again has put the world’s poorest people at risk and could have a lingering detrimental impact for years.

“We cannot allow short-term food-price spikes to have damaging long-term consequences for the world’s most poor and vulnerable,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

A severe drought in the U.S. Midwest has cut projected grain yields dramatically, reviving memories of 2008, when a sharp increase in food prices caused riots in some countries and raised questions about the use of crops to make biofuels.